We wrote about this district in an earlier post, and are heartened to see they have seen the light. Minnesota's largest school district has developed a model to address harassment and bullying of GLBT students that may serve as a national template. Stay tuned and see if this momentum even carries into the deep south bastions of homophobia.

How this girls T-shirt disrupts the orderly operation of the school is beyond our comprehension. Supreme Court rulings put the burden of proof on the school district...not left to the whim of some misguided school administrator. Lynn High School VICE Principal (vice...that explains it!) Joe O'Hagan told the girl that the shirt was political and offended some people. WE find Gingrich for President buttons highly offensive and obviously political, but support the right to wear them. Say it ain't so Joe!

We have commented about this issue before...nothing new except that college students are rightfully ticked off at higher costs, debt, and no professional jobs in sight. We hope that college students will unite and engage in protests around the country. Cuts to education are the worst case scenario pre-K through post graduate.

Finally...Alabama has exposed the crew of Peanuts for what they are...illegal immigrants. We say round up Linus, Lucy, Charlie Brown, Schroeder, and Pig Pen and deport them. These are clearly a bunch of illegals brought to the US by Charles Schultz. They never seem to age either which suggests an alien like quality!
Actually, the get tough Alabama law requires that all companies doing business with the state provide documentation that no illegals work for them. The company in NYC that holds the rights to the play was reluctant to provide the required paperwork to Pelham High School, holding up production. The show must go on! This will be the most important theatrical performance ever in the state of Alabama! We also think that the use of a football requires approval by Crimson Tide coach Nick Sayban.

For anyone who has not explored the Khan Academy offering of courses, free, on-line, interactive and highly effective...get moving on this. We are fully behind this project and note the rapid expansion of courses beyond the sciences and math. School districts need to take note as well...beats sitting in lectures with limited and untimely corrective feedback and lack of student engagement. Get on the Khan and leave no child behind!

Looks like the old bait and switch to us! Minnesota-based Junkyard Prophet, a Christian youth ministry promised an anti-bullying and anti-drug message at the assembly in Dunkerton, Iowa. Instead, the kids got lectured on the evils of homosexuality and pre-marital sex. The group told the high school students that "anyone who is gay will die before they reach age 42." The students are pissed and the superintendent promised that this will never happen again. We hope these Christian prophets did not get paid for the shameless performance and that they will actually deliver on what a youth ministry should promise...lots of religious bullshit! Oh wait, they did deliver!
STORY: 'Junkyard Prophet' Shocks Iowa School With Anti-Gay Messages At Assembly (VIDEO)

Given the overwhelming body of evidence that points to the power or high quality early childhood education, it saddens us to think that there are "coveted spots" and that parents have to pitch tents to get kids into kindergarten classrooms. This investment pays high dividends and the folks in Sacramento need to be provided with unfettered access. We would advocate that all of the parents "occupy" the school grounds until all children are registered.

Jada's controversial essay made "comparisons between a slavemaster discouraging Frederick Douglass from learning to read and modern education struggles in her district." Her voice joins the thousands who have studied unequal access to education based on race and socio-economic status...but she was summarily harassed at school, transferred to another school where her parents saw little difference and an unsafe environment. While the superintendent admits they didn't handle her free speech very well (no kidding) he at least recognizes her right to dissent. The issue here is not only that the school does not seem to welcome free speech...they don't seem to like students to tell it like it is either!

Brother (not sister) Sledge is one of a dirty dozen individuals under a federal investigation. The former assistant superintendent of Pontiac Schools has been indicted for money laundering and theft of $236,000 of school funds. The district is 24 million in debt and it looks like they have misspent or spent without proper authorization ten's of millions. Now that's educational leadership at its best! Is this why GM no longer manufactures Pontiacs?

Seems like a bit of an overreaction by Shaw Heights Middle School in Adams County, Colorado. Maybe a bit of cabin fever, or just an inability to resolve a difference of opinion with an 11-year old...the cops were actually called and cuffed Yarija because she was rude to the principal. Does the school use capital punishment for late library books?

Take some nasty ground meat, treat with hydrogen peroxide, add connective tissue, beef scraps and trimmings and you have what has been referred to as SOYLENT PINK!!!!!!!!!! When approached to purchase this slop for burgers, three five-star world renowned restaurants declined (McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell... are you kidding me, Taco Bell even turned this down?). But, the US Department of Agriculture will be serving this up at a school cafeteria near you. It was approved with minimal standards under pressure by the George HW Bush administration. More shitburgers from the Bush family!

An arbitrator recently ruled that this pervert gets his job back at Glacier Middle School, plus back pay and benefits estimated at over $200,000. All he did was look at porn at school BEFORE the district enacted a stricter policy...hence...off the hook. So here is the solution if the school district fails in an appeal ( they have already spent over $300,000 on this case)...students should simply refuse to be in his presence. Parents can work to organize these kids and make sure his science classroom stays empty. Then the district can reassign him to...Internet Specialist!

The US Supreme Court has ruled on school dress and grooming, essentially finding that the school may impose limits, if dress "disrupts the orderly operation of the school." Seventeen-year old high school junior Asante Coleman is openly gay and simply dressed in 6 inch heels, cargo pants, shirt and scarf. The school is claiming that the heels posed a "safety risk" and suspended Asante when he refused to peel them off. Look...if the kid wants to wear high heels, so what...but the fashionista's say: definitely give him a talk about them cargo pants, please!

Port Arthur ISD Principal Bessie Johnson (Travis Elementary) is accused of using corporal punishment to "motivate" a group of fifth graders to perform better on standardized tests. She allegedly had the students kneel in front of their individual test scores and walked along beating them down the line. Shades of the Old Deluder Satan Act in colonial Massachusetts (1657?)...children are born evil and we need to beat goodness into them...or at least better test scores. And this level of brilliance is still pervasive in 18 states in the USA that still allow corporal punishment in schools. Corporal punishment does not work, does not teach, and does not motivate. The state needs to strip this idiot of her certification and send her for alternative training...Jiffy Lube perhaps.

Well, now that the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has solved all of the sexual abuse cases, they can turn their attention to more pressing matters. Sacred Heart Catholic School teacher Julie Gurta asked that Miranda be punished for committing what must be a mortal sin at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion...saying "Thank you" and "I Love You" in her native tongue, Menominee Indian. This must not be one of the "speaking in tongues" recognized by the RCC! Miranda was barred from playing in the girls basketball game and we are guessing was given a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers as well. Gurta and the basketball coach have since apologized, but Miranda's folks are questioning their sincerity after the fact.

With all of the vitriol spewed forth by the far right in this year's GOP campaign, this story does not come as a surprise. Daniela came to the US from Columbia at age 4 along with her family. She has a 6.7GPA in the international baccalaureate program and dreams of being a heart surgeon after completing studies at an Ivy League school. Damn...another illegal deadbeat sucking at the tit of public welfare! Kudos to School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho who voiced his opposition to the judges rejection of her application for a green card and issuance of the deportation order..."over his dead body!" And, kudos to the overwhelming outpouring of support from her classmates. As for the judge and the whole "get tough on immigration" policy...you are just another brick in the wall.

The more we read about the sex abuse scandal at Miramonte Elementary School, the sicker we get. In a hyper-vigilant mode, the school now must ban the use of blindfolds for non-visual sense reading lessons, and the science experiment in which kids get to make butter. Why? Accused perp Mark Berndt allegedly blindfolded children and fed them his semen on cookies. The school is drawing a correlation of science class manufactured butter on crackers to Berndt's actions. Not sure how the school will survive this but our hearts go out to all in this troubled school community.

They was just funnin' don't ya know! Two janitors at Gregory Elementary School in Long Beach, New Jersey, are under investigation for binding and gagging two 10-year old students in the school lav. Their defense...just a little joke. We are hoping that the full force of the law will be exercised here, and that the kids will not suffer any long term harm. In the meantime, these two geniuses are on paid leave. We are wondering if they are behind Hoffa's mysterious disappearance.....no joke!

Another teenage crush has turned sour in south Florida. Honor student Justin Laboy fell in love with a 25 year- old undercover cop posing as a high school senior coed. She asked him to buy her some weed, which he did, and...love hurts. Justin was busted along with several others in the sting operation in Palm Beach. Looks like entrapment to us. After all, as Meatloaf profoundly put it..."I'll do anything for love." The kid just didn't listen to the rest of the lyric!

Hey, if you didn't bring enough to share with everyone... Anne teaches at Bayshore High School in Manatee, Florida, and was tested at 0.112% blood alcohol level during the school day. Not sure if there was a kegger going on in the teachers lounge, or if she just had a five martini lunch! She was busted by the principal who smelled booze on the breath. Either Anne needs to get into the 12 steps or should switch to vodka and orange juice. Bottoms up!

Talk about getting perky with a health care perk! Buffalo public school teachers have a sweet health care rider that provides any plastic surgery procedure, including botox and tummy tucks at a cost of nearly 5.2 million dollars to the school district last year alone. The teacher's union is not really interested in negotiating on this coverage, even though budgets are tough and teachers have been laid off. While we fully support health care coverage, this has morphed into a ridiculous burden on taxpayers and the millions of dollars going to a booming cosmetic surgery industry in Buffalo ought to be invested in the students.

You can stick that retirement option! Congrats to Olivia who has been teaching since 1935. Imagine all the dizzying pendulum swings she has seen in education. She currently teaches reading to Kindergarten and Pre-K children at Ashburn Lutheran School in Chicago. Considering that half of today's crop of teachers leave the classroom within five years, this is an incredible accomplishment.

More misguided folks blindly following shoddy research that supports value-added analysis in education.
Grounded in the Tennessee STAR Study, which has been essentially discredited, the political attack on public schools pretends to use data and statistical analysis, now to rate teachers. Here is the direction we would like to go...have all elected officials submit to value added analysis and publish the results to the electorate. Better yet...base their salary on the value they have added to the economy. For example, once unemployment reaches 7% or lower, start paying them 50%. When it hits 6%, up the salary to 70%. Once it dips below 5%, full salary. And as a bonus (merit pay) when we stop going to war for one year, throw in health care....but no contraception!

Georgia lawmakers are tough on undocumented immigrants. They want all members of the University System of Georgia to ferret out these students from the total enrollment of 318,000 to make room for "real Americans." A recent audit reveals that there are about 300 undocumented students enrolled (about .09%). We are guessing that Georgia will have to search far and wide to fill those 300 seats with "real Americans" (whatever that means). Ludicrous way to spend legislative effort but Georgia wants to follow Arizona in getting tough on these folks. Red meat for the red states.

Likening the closing of under-performing schools in Chicago to apartheid is gross hyperbole and does little to advance what will be done to improve the education of the nearly 7500 students impacted. Will they be moved to high performing schools? What metrics are being used to determine performance levels of the schools themselves? Is funding being shifted with them or to some for-profits that will operate the schools? This debate is political and to suggest that education and politics are not necessarily intertwined is naive.

The Michigan budget surplus was highly touted by GOP presidential hopeful and Flip-flopper in Chief Mitt Romney. Mitt not only likes the size of the trees in Michigan...he loves the down-sized education budget pushed through by Governor Rick Snyder. We can expect the same under Romney...cut education funding at a time when we need to invest more heavily in public education.